


Origami Roses

by wordswithinmoments



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Pining, Separation, slowburn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:34:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29728404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordswithinmoments/pseuds/wordswithinmoments
Summary: Oikawa Tooru hated the concept of saying goodbye, so he settles with choosing to just never say it.
Relationships: Oikawa Tooru & Reader, Oikawa Tooru/Reader
Kudos: 11





	Origami Roses

Oikawa Tooru hated goodbyes.

He wasn’t exactly _against_ the _idea_ of what comes right after a goodbye, but rather, he just hated _saying_ it. It was a two syllable word, sometimes just one, if you weren’t feeling it. Easy on the tongue, and it rolls out fairly quick.

“Hello,” as the word said to start something, and Tooru had always found that he _liked_ that. He liked beginnings as much as he loved the journey that follows suit, but he hated the ending. It was inevitable, the more he thinks about it.

He heard his parents say goodbye to the relatives that would go home after coming over for dinner, and bye to the nice lady at the grocery store who would often be the one to ring up their groceries and indulge them in light conversation when an opportunity was presented. _Goodbye_ is an _easy_ word.

But he _hated_ it.

Seven year old Oikawa Tooru would do everything _but_ say the word. He’d wave his hands, maybe throw in a peace sign if he was feeling silly enough for the occasion, but his mouth would be clamped shut. His older sister, ever the tease she always had been—even up until now—would pinch him on his sides and hiss at him to be polite and _say_ something. To acknowledge introductions and partings was just a part of social etiquette, and Tooru knew that.

 _But still,_ he’d always reason with himself.

_I hate it._

So he lets himself do just that. Even at the early age of seven, he lived the little life he’s had intent on hating the aspect of goodbye. When the daffodils outside bloomed in the spring, he said his hello. To the tiny petals that face the sun, to the leaves that catch dewdrops come morning, and to the roots that would ensure their return after winter would come and take life’s bloom.

Because for him, hello looked like beginnings—while beginnings, they looked like you.

You, as the new neighbor’s daughter. Sparkling eyes, wide smile, and every color in the rainbow you. The beginning of a story that he knows is bound to last that started with a hello, and ever since, it was just that.

He hated the idea of seeing you leave early, mumbling a quick “tomorrow again?” when six pm rolled around the clock and your parents called for you to come back home instead of the dreaded goodbye.

Then it didn’t take long for not just his sister and his parents, but also Iwaizumi to begin pointing out the things he tries so hard to deny. Just by the mention of your name, even when they’d only _barely_ sound out the first syllable, little Tooru’s ears would turn _so_ red, Iwaizumi had to physically take a breather to stop himself from choking through his laughter.

Most of the time it worked, he supposes. Routine wasn’t so bad. You’d come over during the weekdays and weekends in the summer, then walk with him to and from school during the school year. Sure, he’d be teased left and right, and his sister would always poke his side a little harsher whenever you’d stick around for dinner, but it was worth it.

You talked of the home that wasn’t here; about the roses that bloomed wider along the streets of the old Spanish town that was a part of you. And Tooru would sit there, across you from the table, chopsticks in his hands rendered useless, his eyes transfixed to you as he clung onto every word you said as if it was even holier than the Vatican’s most precious prayer.

Then because you were still a hello, even a year after he’d met you and spoke your name _countless_ times by now—Tooru makes it his life’s mission to push of the goodbye he never ones to come across his way.

-

And to be frank, it works.

For the _longest_ time, you don’t recall an instance where Tooru even came close to uttering those words. It’s always solely been an arm over the shoulder, a peace sign with his tongue sticking out, and a wink with a “ _tomorrow again!”_ shouted over to you, in mirth.

But it’s fine, you suppose. _Goodbye_ felt like it was too serious of a word—in any language, actually. _Paalam_ , the word for goodbye in your language, looked like a final walk through the cobblestone streets and a last glance at the red, red, _blood red_ roses that bloomed along the path. _Paalam_ to your culture, and the core of your identity, though in a way you still always carry a sliver of it with you.

(It _is_ you.)

A year ago, Oikawa Tooru looked like hello, and remained as such. He never said goodbye, or even see you later, because he’d only wave at most. Lips sealed tight, a smile on his face, and eyes scrunched into crescents, he’d say “tomorrow,” with a voice that’s honest, and you never doubted that since.

Then it’s through the origami roses you’d always fold in your spare time that sets the story where your life and his slowly intertwining into motion.

Square papers, creases and folds—all things that have become familiar to you by now.

Tooru’s quick to acknowledge the thought that he loved spending time with you the most when you were sat shoulder to shoulder beside him, oftentimes indulging in a comfortable kind of silence, a stack of papers beside you, your focus trained to the craft. And that’s where he always asks, voice tentative, and a little shy even, because even if he is curious, he didn’t want to disturb your peace.

You never minded, though.

When his voice would break through the zen in your headspace, it didn’t feel as if he was being intrusive. His voice was heard; his presence acknowledged. You felt the fabric of his shirt on his shoulder against yours, and it was warm. He would lean in, face close to you, then would turn beet red when you’d crane your neck to look at him with a smile.

That’s where you’d see hazel eyes like honey under the perfect kind of sun, the apples of his cheeks more than red, and his lips parted as if he didn’t see this coming.

“Just curious, that’s all,” Tooru would often say, and you chuckle every time too—because even you had to admit to yourself that being flustered was a good look on him. Though truth be told, that, plus a lot of other things were a good look on him.

Yellow raincoat and clunky rain boots during the rainstorms in the summer suited him well. The alien shirt plus matching lunchbox that he’d always bring to the park suit him just as well too. When he smiled, he looked like he carried the very essence of the sun, so you suppose that happiness, unfiltered as he presented it to be, looked something akin to that.

But really, he thought the same too.

You were the first face he pictured beside the word beautiful. Origami roses and faraway looks on you were beautiful. The words you’d say when you spoke of your home away from _this_ home were beautiful. The sounds of the words you’d say of a language foreign to him were always, _always_ beautiful.

Then when you’d turn, face inches from him, beauty like innocence and youth—under the sun, the skies, and the heavens, Tooru would have to hold himself still and take a deep breath because that too, was just as beautiful.

(If not, more.)

-

He asks you to tell him about the roses he’d seen you spend nearly hours on one summer afternoon.

Three days before the official start of high school, Tooru opts out of taking his place beside you and instead sits, with rapt attention, across you. Silence had always been a familiar company for the both of you, but this one was different. Though if you were to be honest, you didn’t exactly mind much.

Tooru hummed out his reactions, but kept his silence when needed. He sat with his legs crossed, body leaned forward against the support of his palms on the floor, his eyes wide.

Ever since he was young, there was something about the fluidity of routine that made it satisfying to watch. Like the push and pull of the waves that come only to go along the shore, and the unspoken routine that fell in his household. His mother waking at six, then shuffling around the kitchen at six-thirty. His sister would stir around six forty-five, then when she’d get up and make her way to the door, the sound of her thumping the table would always be heard through the walls in his room.

It’s at six fifty where he’d usually decide to eventually open his eyes, but Tooru would always just stare at the ceiling. At the glow in the dark stars on the ceiling, the photos taped to the wall that made this four walls and four corners of the house— _his._ Ten minutes would count down, despite the lack of a timer. Tooru would turn a total of two times. First on his left side, where he’d face the wall, hug a pillow, and press his face in the fabric to try to at least get a little more sleep. Then when the voice in his head had him realizing that he was more than awake, he’d turn to his right and face the blinds.

And it’s sunshine spilling through the filter of the spaceship themed curtains he begged his mother to buy for him just two weeks ago. He’d smile, blink his eyes a couple of times to rid the lingering remnants of sleep, and listen to the sounds of routine play out outside.

He liked it.

There was a good morning, and a “how was your sleep?” mumbled throughout the house, breaking the early morning silence. The feel of his blanket beneath his fingertips was familiar, as was the scent of the laundry detergent his mother has used his whole life now.

Routine.

Every event expected, aside the sprinkles of serendipity scattered in between the cracks of point a and point b, but everything was _established._

There was order, and Tooru _liked_ that.

He liked looking at you fold crease after crease; connecting edges and tucking corners in between the other, you moving through the motions like it’s muscle memory that’s guiding you instead of a consistent stream of conscious decisions being made.

“Why red roses?” Tooru questions, noticing the red stack of origami papers beside you, the colors in uniform.

“They’re like the ones back home,” he hears you answer him afterwards, your fingers still flying one over the other as you tuck in another corner, unfold, then roll.

“But red means something too right?” he persists, leaning in closer out of habit, before shuffling back when he notices he’s getting a little too close for comfort. (By comfort, he knows he means his.) (He knows if he didn’t pull back, you’d only be turning your head just to peer at him, and Tooru could never help the red that would be quick to bloom on his cheeks afterwards.)

“Red means something,” you tell him, slowing your movements and peering up at him with a smile that has him thinking you know more than you let on.

“I just don’t know what it means,” you shrug, in your voice the beginnings of an airy laugh.

“Not yet at least,” you continue, looking at the paper petals of the red rose you fashioned from just paper and time.

Tooru nods his head, then prompts, “Do you _want_ to give it a meaning instead?” 

“Maybe I do, one day,” you exhale, the smile on your face oddly resembling nostalgia despite the lack of memories he knows you haven’t lived through _(just yet.)_ “But for now I like to think that the red roses are red just because.”

A soft sigh, then a laugh escaping through his nose, barely counting as laughter if anything. But the happiness sits and lingers. The hello that was said years ago was still in place, never a goodbye said even up until this day.

Hello, for the sake of beginnings, and no goodbye all for the reason of “ _just_ _because.”_

(And it makes sense, Tooru thinks.)

He accepts the bloom of the origami rose you give him, red petal like the stains of blood against his hand, but he cradles it like it’s something heaven sent. Watching you gleam under the sunlight, routine woven like strings on your hand, he supposes that in a way it was true.

The six thirty sun breaks through the four pm clouds that lingered, and in the depth of your eyes he sees the heavens open.

(A heart lays still, before it beats.)

And he thinks that it could be the start of something that might as well could bloom into love, through time. So three days before the start of high school, sat across a bench in the park, with a paper bloom in his hand, he watches you with a thrum in his heart that was both unknown yet welcome to him.

Then, he says another _hello._

(Another new beginning of some sorts.)

-

And truth be told, Oikawa Tooru thinks it’s undeniable that the seed that rooted itself all those years ago from the second kind of _hello_ he said was meant to bloom into this only a mere three years later.

 _This,_ as the tendrils of the good kind of love.

The kind that bloomed along the halls of a familiar school, cradled in the hands that would often give and never take. Where for Tooru, your giving was manifested through the comfort laced with your words and the slow tilt of your head when you gave him all your attention whenever he’d speak.

And when you did, it felt like he was the center of the world. Even the very universe, sometimes, but more times than not it usually would be him who thinks that the situation’s flipped. Red roses, a language unfamiliar on his tongue, where through the unfamiliar territory he’d brave _for_ you and _with_ you, there was a sense of home.

Home, like the five thirty sun in your eyes and the slow tilt of your head when you’d begin to drift off in class, caught in a daydream. Like watching you watch the clouds roll by during red lights or stop signs. You, in the passenger seat of his car, elbows by the window, your eyes forever towards the sky.

The years that come and go, but you stay. You’re still his Stephanie. Red origami roses were still yours, and you were still the one who was first to hear about his anything, and everything, _always._

So it’s on the both of your third year of high school where Tooru gives himself the relief of facing the thought that perhaps this _could_ be love.

Love through the silent conversations shared with the wordless nod of the head when he’d pick you up at your house to walk to the station before school. Your good morning as a nod to your left plus a smile, was his was a nod to the right, followed by a wink he knows you’re more than comfortable with by now.

The early definitions of love told through a wordless love language that was knowing which coffee beans you liked the most, and keeping the worms away from you every time you’d try gardening with him. Taking you on hikes and weekend adventures despite knowing that he’ll be more than sore for practice the very next day.

It’s your smile, he thinks.

Open, breathless, and free. He feels like he’s soaring when you offer your happiness to him, the evidence of the fall like an impossible thing that wouldn’t come close to him, because love, he thinks, in that sliver of time, is meant to make you feel invincible.

-

And at least it does, until he finally learns what it means to be vulnerable.

It’s not exactly a scary thing, Tooru thinks, but what it is, _is_ more than brave.

You tell him your secrets one night, under the kind of sky with all the stars that he could connect like dots as much as he’d like—the constellations that lay before him in the beyond seemingly too infinite to count.

You blink in between every couple of words that you speak, and he realizes he loves you.

Tooru watches you, blinking at your words, and you realize that you love him.

It’s a conversation that feels like how it should, you suppose. You gave him your secret while he gave you his. It wasn’t much of an exchange, but rather just a conversation. To say “I’m hurt,” to another person and them holding your hand or patting your back, replying with “I’m hurt too,” is comfort.

Oikawa Tooru holding your hand under the stars that night while you gave him an origami rose in return is comfort.

In the silence, and in the cradle of vulnerability, you remember what it is to be human.

(To feel, feel, and feel.)

The very depth of the dip and dives, and the highest peak of the summit when you ride the highs of life.

Tooru watches your eyes as you go through the motions, and his hand doesn’t cease to hold tight. There was no letting go, he thinks. Trust entered with a hello, and it had the intention to stay.

To linger, bloom, and cascade over the both of you like the waters from the fountain meant to make the broken heal.

“You don’t have to tell me everything,” he tells you, and you suppose that he’s right.

“Just feel what comes and then let it go when it leaves. The thing about what you feel is it always moves in waves, so it if it’s tough now, it’ll smoothen out eventually.”

“You’re pretty wise for someone who everybody just thinks is a pretty boy,” you laugh.

“You’re not everyone,” Tooru says wistfully, and in his eyes you see the truth of stars.

(They come from far away, and gleam in the heavens of the earth for the sake of lingering through your lifetime.)

It’s comforting.

-

Goodbye leaves an ugly taste on his tongue.

And for a while, Tooru did everything he could to _try_ to get rid of the taste. Goodbye was a one sided word, he decided then. You said it, while he waved his hand and kept his lips shut.

A farewell, he thinks, requires an agreement. Two people bidding the other the forever kind of goodbye, the intention of finality laced through the two little words. And to be frank, there had been none of that.

In his head, it just another case of _“see you tomorrow,”_ only this time, he didn’t know exactly _when_ tomorrow would be. Or _if_ it would even come, for the matter, but he doesn’t tell himself that.

Oikawa Tooru thinks of the image of you turning your back and walking towards the gate at the airport, past the gates he isn’t allowed to cross— _just yet—_ with a one way ticket to America in your hand. Argentina’s what’s written on the prebooked flight for him just a week after your departure, and the chance of meeting you again was _possible_ , but slim.

He _knew_ that what came after this was a drawn out goodbye. The stretched out kind, that left more what ifs than clarified answers, but in the early stages of it, it was _enough._

 _Barely_ enough, but he was hanging on.

Like the “see you tomorrow” you’d tell the kid at the park in your youth. You’d go home maybe with scratches on your hands and knees from the adventure of the day, and tell your parents about the new friend you made. But you’d forget. Tomorrow would come, and the memory of the park at 5:30 with the new friend would remain as is—a memory.

Kept in the past, in the present something else, and that would be it.

(He didn’t _want_ this to be it, and because the finality of a farewell was not said just through a goodbye from one end, he knew that there would be more to this. There would be more to the story of you and him. Of Stephanie and Oikawa Tooru. The girl with the origami roses in her hands who befriended the boy with the world watching his every movement.

Argentina comes, then a text from a number in the US.

Your face on the screen, a world unknown to him behind you in all its greatness. You tell him that the city’s treating you well. Your parents seem happy, and at the sight of the smile that comes and never goes on your face—Oikawa can tell that you seem to be just as happy as well. If not, more.

So in Argentina he decides to stay, because it’s in the city where finds his slice of happiness too. The emotion coming to him in slivers at first, because he had always been tentative around the idea of the world offering him _kindness_ after all the wrong its done. But it’s here, he thinks. The language is foreign, but it’s beautiful. Five thirty pm still shows all the colors of marmalade and scarlet in the sky, where the colors are _screaming_ instead of only whispering, but it’s not home.

It’s beautiful, and he’s in love, but he’s not home.

Then he’d think of you. Where he developed the habit of sitting in his balcony during his sunrise and your sunset, because for that little while he could at least pretend that you were still on the same side of the world. And even though it wasn’t _exactly_ like home, he still pulled some strings and tried to make the routine at least _feel_ like how it was.

Tooru still woke up ten minutes right before seven, and there were still glow in the dark stickers in the ceiling of his apartment. The curtains didn’t have smiling aliens nor beams from the spaceships, but they had constellations. Just like how the twinkles of the sky during the daylight would always in a way be yours, the gleam of the night sky would be left behind the clouds just for him to take.

(And he takes them; cradles the stars in his hands, and memorizes the pattern of every constellation he saw under the night skies with you. From dot to dot, they twinkle and engrave their presence into a little space in his memory.)

Before the sun breaks and light spills, Tooru closes his eyes and thinks of the gleam. Thinks of the stars that sparkle, sparkle, _sparkle_ —

—up until he remembers you.

Then it’s 7am and the light from the heavens would spill into the room and he’d close his eyes again for just a second, render the voices in his head until they hushed themselves into a comforting silence, and face the side of the room that showed the sky.

It’s shades of marmalade and soft yellow that greet him. Memories of home in Japan, in the little rural town right outside of Tokyo. Red origami paper, your fingers flying in motion guided by muscle memory, and the slow hum of your voice that sounded like the missing piece to the melody of the lull of his routine.

Part of his routine was still you. 7AM and 7PM. His sunrise to your sunset, where for that short while of his day he felt as if he was home again.

Tooru opens his phone, counts to three like he’s always done with his reasoning as “ _just because,”_ then waits for the icon next to your picture to turn to green before pressing the call.

You’re smiling, which he notes that you’ve been doing more than often now, and you say _hello._

He mumbles his response, voice a little sleepy, but you know he’s just saying his own hello too.

You find it a little silly how it’s through calls like these where you feel most at home. You’re in your pyjamas in bed, your favorite movie on the screen playing on the laptop to serve as background noise, and the photos hung in frames around the walls of your room are of you and what’s yours.

In every sense of the word, you _are_ home. Your parents are in the other side, and the streets outside your window are familiar. Marmalade and soft yellow skies are a familiar sight against the reflection of your eyes, and even if you hate driving, you still admit to yourself that during drives to home under skies like these—you would still miss your turn a couple more times and drive in just a _few_ more circles just to watch the clouds of the heavens chase you.

But Tooru cracks a grin, mumbles a joke he probably heard the other day, and just like that you’re settling into your own sheets, forgetting the fact that the sign beside the number 7 of his and your clock are different.

For just this while you pretend that you’re still in that little town outside of Tokyo, and Tooru was the face you’d see on the screen of your phone at night then in person in class tomorrow.

 _Tomorrow,_ you think, and the word rings in your head.

By now, you already know far better than anyone that right after this call Tooru would still only wave his hand and say see you tomorrow, more so out of sentimentality than just the sake of habit. (But you don’t mind.)

He talks about the feel of Argentina in the sun, but it doesn’t take long for him to remember Miyagi and the summers it still had to offer. You listened, always, because you always did think to yourself that Tooru looked the prettiest when he was lighting up along with his words. There was a glow to him that you only see now, and you tell yourself that you’re _happy._

Goodbye was said, but a farewell wasn’t meant.

The fact of the matter that as you turned away you still saw Oikawa Tooru physically bite his lips and clench his hand as he shouted another _see you tomorrow_ instead of _goodbye_ or even _take care_ —it _fueled_ the thoughts in you that he didn’t have a farewell in mind.

So you listen to him talk, as he does with you. You recount the stories about how much you hated driving even if you knew the streets like the back of your hand by now. The rise and fall of what meant happiness and frustration, and how some days were easier or harder than the rest.

University was okay, and there was a glow in your eyes when you told him about all the things you _wanted_ to do. He smiles everytime, thanking the marmalade behind you because more often than not, it would always match the exact hues of the streaks in his sky from beyond the window.

“I’m here,” he tells you everytime, even without you needing to sound out your weariness, because he would always see the slump of your shoulders and flicker of your eyes before the emotion of heaviness would even dare settle on your shoulders.

“I’m here, too,” you’d sound out—and the world from your corner and his would simply _bloom_ in color. There had always been a truth into the reassurances you’d tell one another and you find that this wasn’t any different.

“I’m here,” sufficed for now, because the moment to tell him that you love him wasn’t right (just yet.)

Tooru looks at you, and smiles the soft kind of smile you know is only for you, always, and repeats the words again. “I’m here,” instead of, “I’ve loved you, and in love with you, and am pretty sure I would _always_ love you,” because he wants to hold you under the skies as he says it instead of just watch the colors erupt on the canvas of your eyes through a screen.

You’re on the other side of the world, thousands of miles away, but Tooru feels like he’s home.

And it’s “I’m here,” you tell eachother—night and day, thinking in all the shades of grey in between just the black and white, because love can be like that too. Love can be tiptoeing within the inbetween spaces because the moment just isn’t right—yet.

I’m here, as a for now, because when Tooru smiles and you do the same, it’s enough.

The message is delivered, though only halfway, but you feel the presence. Marmalade swirls and it seems endless, and you’re home—in the present, in the moment.

(And it’s enough.)

(For now.)

-

Because it’s like that, up until it isn’t.

Distance is an ugly thing, he thinks. True to his earlier assumptions, distance really _did_ morph into the slow kind of goodbye. A gradual parting, where mercy came in the form of the bliss found in ignorance. Telling himself that a missed call one night would just _be_ for that night, and nothing more.

Then it’s a little over another year of distant calls and sort of established routines where one shifts into two, to three, then eventually it dwindles down into one call a week. Sometimes from your end, and sometimes from his. The truth is, life kept happening; paths were being uncovered, or paved; walked and ran through, or sometimes just peered in.

Argentina was meant to be just a stepping stone—as a road that should have remained _as just a part of the journey,_ but everytime the sun rose and set and he’d roll another word previously foreign into his tongue like he’d been saying it all his life, Oikawa Tooru learned what it meant to fall in love with life.

Love, had always been you.

His Stephanie who was home, and roses, and constellations under every sort of sky. His home nestled in the very heart of a city in America he is yet to explore, even though he knows the streets just as well as you do. He knows you hate to drive down this certain highway, and remembers that you like to take that lane.

Driving was never your strong suit, nor your favorite hobby—not by a long shot, so during the times you’d keep him on the phone on the drive to somewhere, he’d memorize the names of the streets and indications of the exits you needed to take along with you.

Tooru never liked sitting in the car, driving in traffic either, but he supposes that love was in the little things. The little sacrifices made for the sake of one, for the sake of _you._

His love, his home, his forever girl, _you._ Even if you didn’t know it just yet.

So it’s safe to say that it cuts him a little deeper than he initially anticipated when the final stretch of the prolonged goodbye finally came around.

A little over a year and some months later, he realizes that he doesn’t know what your favorite color is anymore. Tooru recalls that Boston is your home, and you’re going to school majoring in Psychology. Your class schedule along with a detailed timetable written in both your timezone and his was saved on a file in the back of his phone, and that was that. He knew semesters changed, as did years, but even if talking to you felt like second nature—the recent calls had him feeling like he was a little further away than usual.

The drift began like that. One missed call, then two.

“Sorry! I’ll call you tomorrow; just got busy with my schedule today,” and “Hope you’re doing well,” as the eventual endings that didn’t look like it at the start.

 _Hello,_ he’d typed out once, after a week of hearing nothing, but he never pressed send.

 _I’m here,_ you typed, after a month of silence, but eventually let the dip of your emotions get the best of you instead.

The funny thing is, even though neither of you said goodbye, life just happened and said it for you.

It didn’t feel like exactly a farewell, but two years and six months later, even without words, the only semblance of feeling like you had found home was through looking up at the skies, at the swirls of marmalade while closing your eyes.

Your hands would move in accordance to muscle memory; a fold, crease, roll, and then some, where in just minutes you’d be holding a rose.

You think of his question from years ago, his voice still clear in your ear despite the image of the memory beginning to blur at the edges.

“Why red roses?” he asked, and so you ask yourself that now. _Why_ still red roses when the stacks of paper on your bedside table held every shade of not just the hues of the sunset?

The word hello, and I’m here sits unsent on the message box addressed to a phone number you aren’t even certain of anymore is still his.

 _They’re red,_ you think— _still red—_ because your love would always be his.

-

And as much as your love would be his, at the root of it, you would always still be _yours._ (and yours alone.)

At least you try to tell yourself that, because emotions were a tricky thing. One minute you think you’re okay, and you’re soaring. _I love you,_ told to the self, and you _mean it,_ then you’re suddenly tripping. Tripping over something you knew was there but looked past, that eventually sends you spiraling and stumbling over your next few steps.

Missed opportunities and misunderstood connections.

You, thinking that love would always have its own way of working itself out and finding you instead of you being the one to find it or at least meet it halfway in the middle. And love, as the one constant in your life and the world that never follows one certain path.

Love manifests itself in everything, you think.

It’s inescapable, and raw. It feels what it feels, and always _demands_ for you to do the same.

Two years and some months, but marmalade skies and red origami roses were still tied with the hello that never was completed with a goodbye, and Oikawa Tooru who looked to the skies in Argentina thousands of miles away. There was a pain in an unclaimed love that had been lost far too soon before it was even given at least a chance to be found, but you suppose with the good, comes the bad too. Reparations for the moments of mercy, and you think to yourself that maybe yours was this.

The little slice of love had been everything, if you were being honest to yourself. Love found in the streets of Miyagi and the little school where the plants would bloom the most beautiful. The convenience store that sold every kind of gum, and the red origami paper that would be folded into roses like clockwork as marmalade bled into the dark, and the stars would come where Tooru would lay beside you, hands to sky as he connected star to star, naming constellations.

Thinking back to it, you don’t recall much of his words, or remember the memory that perfectly to trace every line of his face, but you remember his smile. You remember the feeling of constantly soaring, and being _in place._ Home, you think. A word that’s felt more foreign to you than familiar lately.

Even though the years had been kind to you, it wasn’t exactly too much of that.

Love turned from being the factor that made you feel invincible and infinite into practicality. It wasn’t a box that left you suffocated and yearning for more, because what you had later on in life looked like it was enough. _Objectively,_ it was enough.

There was a career, and success. A promise ring on your finger, and kindness in his eyes. He spoke words that you always thought felt too gentle, and there was patience in everything that he was— _is—_ you constantly have to say, quick to correct yourself every time your thoughts would attribute the present into words that made it seem like it was already the past.

(Because it wasn’t.)

The past was Oikawa Tooru. He was the unfinished book that you left your bookmark hanging off of too long, then never had the will to finish the book when time rolled around and life continued to happen. The man in front of you, you think to yourself is the present.

He’s the office across yours, right down the hall, and the contact id on your speed dial.

He dressed well, and spoke well. There was grace, but you felt as if the pose was practiced. And for you to criticize that was a funny thought, you realize yourself. For someone who had routine embedded in their entire being, calculated and poise were probably one of the last words you would have used to describe yourself.

Your hands knew origami, and your brain was quick enough to map out which route was the least problematic to drive through during the rush hour of the city. You knew your coffee beans well, and could tell the quality ones over the more questionable options laid out for you with just a blink.

(But in your head, you’d hear chaos.)

The love that you served for yourself now, was practical. Everytime you’d looked at the man beside you, you know he _could_ be love, had time and patience been on your side. You know there’d be a house, but you could never find it in you to tell yourself that it would eventually become a home. Photos would be taken, and perhaps you’d fold not just red origami roses but maybe some other things instead.

He looks at you, the look in his eyes you know is sure, and you can only offer him a smile back that feels more poised than natural.

Love, you remind yourself, is also sometimes just the sacrifice.

But if _this_ sacrifice is what you sow, what reward will you reap? _Will it be a reward?_

He walks over to you, a hello at the tips of his lips, and you can’t help but hear a different voice in your head. His blue eyes look hazel in your eyes, and you know this isn’t home.

Maybe for now, it isn’t, but in time it could be— _will be._

But when he says your name, you know you are everywhere _but_ where you’re supposed to be—and truth be told, it terrifies you.

-

Where as for Oikawa Tooru, it worked the same.

Three more cycles of the seasons came and went, some winters harsher than others, but the summers remained the same.

Time doesn’t fly, nor does it drag. It moves.

Sixty seconds in one minute; sixty minutes in an hour; 12 hours in a day; and 365 days in a year. Sunrise and sunset came, but the colors all bled into a murky palette at this point. It wasn’t exactly unpleasant, nor bothersome, but it was just _okay._

And that was the problem—Tooru thinks.

Life like moving through the motions with nothing much to look forward to _wasn’t_ how it was supposed to be. Time felt like it was soaring through their lives throughout every tick of the clock in their youth, because love—the _real, and raw kind—_ was there. Love was supposed to be everything _but_ practical.

Love, who he knows would always still be in a way, you, was freeing.

Like running down an empty highway and screaming. Catapulting off of somewhere and freefalling from clouds to the ground, soaring, and high, high, _high._ A breathless, uncertain chase for the unknown, because serendipity is what he misses craving the most.

Risks, he thinks.

He decides on that and takes a risk.

There was a girl in his life, and he was young. The city was his, and the world was at his beck and call. The orange in the sunset would be marmalade again, and the roses would cease to be the nostalgic memory of you and they’d be red _just because_ again. You’d remain as a memory, felt alongside nostalgia, and he would be _okay._

He could say hello again and scrap out the idea of saying goodbye before it even materializes, and this time—he would be sure.

He would take a risk and seek for the moments where he’d feel breathless again. Though the more he thinks about it, she wasn’t exactly much of a risk. Objectively looking at this from a wider perspective, there were multiple reasons as to why this would work out. They were alike, he counts. _One._ She said more hellos than she did goodbyes, but she always did come back, so that counted for something. _Two._ She lived close to him, ate the same kind of food he liked, and said her I love yous like it was her only truth.

He doesn’t count to three, just yet, because there’s _something._

She feels like another for now, but he thinks that it’s because a lot of it has to do with the origami roses he still can’t let go. The first kind of love that now became just a nostalgic memory. But it baffles him, the more he thinks about it. Nostalgia was meant to be remembered with just _that._ Perhaps a breathless _oh,_ at most, as reaction, but that was about as good as it should have gotten.

You became the memory alongside what was home, but why was he still yearning?

(Because love, he thinks, then decides in a rush, is meant to feel exhilarating.)

He shakes his head clear of thoughts of you, and the image of what had always redefined his definition of home, and inhales as he dives to take a risk.

( _Not a risk, he reminds himself.)_

At 23:11 on a normal kind of night, Oikawa Tooru buys a ring. The band glitters gold, and he thinks of how it would look against marmalade. There’s a stone cut in the shape of something he knows she would like, but he can’t help but wonder if this was what _you_ would like.

A _congratulations,_ as a clap on the back and a smile from the old jeweler who he sought help from, was step one.

Then kneels down on one knee, for now just as practice for what was to come later, under the skies that look too much like yours, right by a bloom of red roses that he knows aren’t red _just because_ and he breaks.

Oikawa Tooru crumbles.

He shakes his head, because uncertainty was what gave him his answer.

 _This isn’t it,_ it said. _This isn’t love,_ it continued, and he’s wide eyed and tongue tied because deep down he _knows_ love is still you. It’s still Miyagi and constellations, and the routine that looked like home in not just you, but life in general as well.

He doesn’t cry, but he keeps breaking. There’s an ache from inside he knows comes from a wound that hasn’t healed—just yet, so he sighs, closing the box and pocketing the ring inside.

There’s an apology on his lips at the sight of her, and that hits the final nail on the coffin.

“This could be love, but it isn’t,” he thinks to himself, and at the sight of red petals against marmalade skies, he knows that for the first time, he’s allowing himself to see what truth has looked like all along.

_His truth._

Honest and raw; unforgivable and all the words frustrating. Helplessness creeping into his skin like it means to bury itself and live there, and Tooru catches himself _truly, desperately,_ hoping that the lingering feel of it isn’t the kind that signifies a forever.

And he’s thankful she isn’t in front of him just yet, because he knows she never did deserve this kind of sin.

Tooru found that mercy was through ignorance, and letting go, so he gives her that.

-

Somewhere in Argentina, Oikawa Tooru breaks the heart of the woman who he thought could have been his endgame love with a true smile and an apology. She sees the cracks on the façade she never saw him wearing before, and hurts.

She understands, but because for her it was love, it hurts.

While somewhere in Boston, it’s you, sitting across the man who looked at you like you were the universe, giving the same spill.

There was a connection that you felt, truly.

In the moments you sounded out the syllables of your apology to the man seated in front of you with hope still in his eyes, dread was the first response you felt that made itself be known. It was a drop of the stomach, an awkward shift of your position, then turning your head from him when you noticed that you were eyeing the exit behind him a little too intently. Your body was turned to the side, he noticed, because like Tooru, he had always been one of the observant ones.

“Stephanie,” he called, and at the sound of your name you turned, facing him.

There was an ending in his eyes before you could get the chance to sound it out.

“It’s okay,” he told you, and when he opens his palms out it isn’t to hold your hand like he’d done so many times before but to grab the glass of water in the middle of the table instead.

The relief you felt immediately afterwards gave you the answer to the question of “is this what I really want?”

The answer comes to you as just _no,_ because you find that you don’t want to claim a love that only stops at this. The horizon of everything that this _could_ be visible from the starting line, or the hello. The kind of love you shared with him, same as the one Tooru built with her was managed through the eyes of practicality.

Thoughts objective, and looking at what seemed _right._ Love was enough, but it wasn’t overwhelming. Time flowed as it should, and you moved throughout the ins and outs of your respective days like it was just going from one point to another—the color of the skies above never bright enough, and the roses beside the streets never looking like they’ve reached their full bloom.

“I’m sorry,” you said, to a man you thought you loved in Boston, while “I’m sorry,” Oikawa Tooru echoed, thousands of miles away in the exact same moment, facing a woman he thought could _bloom_ into love.

And truth be told, the moment they left, you both finally felt at home.

Strangely enough, it was under the marmalade skies too.

You hoped that it meant something.

Tooru looks at the word hello again and thinks of the goodbye neither of you truly did sound out and _knows_ that whatever _this_ was—happened _for_ the sake of something.

(He just hopes that something looks like you.)

-

Where in a way it does, because all it takes is just a few clicks of the mousepad, a few hundred dollars out of his bank account that doesn’t even _look_ dented at this point, a pep talk from Takahiro from back home who he _knows_ is practically the king of impulsive decisions, and he’s suddenly on a plane bound for the Philippines.

This was your first home, he remembers, thinking about the bits and pieces of the stories he always recalls you telling him from his memories in his youth.

He smiles, always. Thinks of you, always. Of love, the unanswered what ifs, the could have beens, the marmalade skies, and at the roses you always said bloomed the brightest there.

And it’s beautiful, Tooru realizes later on, because serendipity truly _does_ make love bloom. It’s in the streets of Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar in an area called Quezon City in the northern island of Luzon where he finally understands the sentiment behind your words.

Old buildings, paved streets, red roses, and a history he knows is a part of you despite the mix of culture you’ve lived through your whole life. There was poetry in the language that felt familiar and like home to him, even though he didn’t understand much without heavy hints in context.

Still, at every red rose, he’d think of you.

His Stephanie who sat beside him, building a garden of just red roses with paper, some patience, and a few practiced movements, while he traced the constellations in the sky. From twinkling dot to twinkling dot, thinking of the stars in the sky, little bits of light scattered across the universe, their light just now reaching the skies of their own little world.

When Tooru thinks of you, he sees his truth that for as long as ever—even up until now, you are still all the stars in the sky of his own little world. There’s no contact now, and having not had even that for more than a while now, but your light always reached him. You became every shade of red, and every star in the sky. Every word in every language he’d come across, the word _beautiful_ at the top of the list.

You held beauty in your hand, wore it as if it was the finest silk or the most priceless jewel. There was strength in the way you carried yourself, he thinks. Truth is, he’d always seen you even through the moments you felt as if you had to cover or shield yourself just a little bit more from the world.

Strength, redefined, where it started as the superficial meaning of how hard he had to hit a ball to hit a service ace and make every spike boom loud enough to elicit a hush from the crowd, to solely just the thought of you.

Golden and blooming. Strength and grace, and vulnerability not as a contrast to one another but more of a perfect blend that rendered you to who you were—no, _are—_ at the very core of it all which was nothing more than just human.

(And for him, that was love.)

The kind of love that had him feeling breathless and wanting to _soar_ was still, always, forever you.

Every deep shade of red, you. Stars in the sky then in your eyes, you. The hello that was never met with a goodbye, you.

The words of your language that tasted foreign on his tongue, you.

The streets of this old Filipino city where he could see you twirl in a maria clara with a lace umbrella, a poem on your lips— _you._

Because as he turned, the bloom of one origami rose still clutched in his hand, it baffles him, to see you.

-

In the flesh, eyes wide, and disbelief as the emotion that’s first to run through your head and his simultaneously.

Another wordless exchange of words, where despite the years that have passed, was still delivered without a hitch. There’s a shift in the air that _feels_ right, and more than anything Tooru finds himself wanting to cry.

And he does, a little later that night.

A sense of home neither of you expected to have longed for this whole time finally returning, more rooted than ever. I love you, still as the three words that aren’t being said, but it’s _felt._ In the moment, love becomes that feeling that does even _more_ than overflow or overwhelm the both of you. It doesn’t pour over your heads, covering you from head to toe like holy water does to an infant, but _this_ kind of love _fills_ you.

It begins in your chests and flows through the veins, like blood that moves throughout the body _every_ single time that the heart beats. It’s the kind of love that isn’t apart _from_ him or you, because it is a part _of_ you.

He looks at you, hazel eyes like gold under the light like this, and you feel like you’re home.

Tooru’s breathless, and speechless all within the same minute, because he knows there was a reason why a goodbye wasn’t said. The tomorrow in the _see you tomorrow_ he’d always say came a little later than what was initially implied, but tomorrow is _here._

Tomorrow is _now,_ along the streets of the home he heard you say the red roses bloomed the most vibrant and everything had been _true._ Skies of the days that had gone are back in the sky, like a painting from the greatest creator, in all the shades of marmalade and gold, and scarlet.

He’s waited what felt like a hundred years, but he knows he’d wait a million more.

“Tooru,” you say, cupping his cheek, angling his face so that he’d look at you.

At the sound of _just_ your voice, it truly baffles him to realize that that’s all it takes for him to be brought back down to earth from years of just aimlessly soaring, the balls of his feet finally reuniting with the earth—a metaphor for just him finally coming to, coming _home._

“Hi,” you whisper, and lean in close.

There was no need for a reintroduction, he supposes, because there had never been a goodbye.

So he leans in, falls again, only this time, it’s his back hitting the soft plush of the earth, and he’s grounded, centered.

His lips meet yours, and he’s weeping at the thought that this was the redefinition of love he’s been struggling to come into terms with. Head clouded over, thoughts blank other than your name, his hands run through yours before he’s crying some more, panting in your ear as he finally lays with you.

And it feels like what he thought home would feel like this whole time. With your heart full, you find yourself weeping alongside with him, too breathless and head caught up in pleasure to attempt to even wrack your brain for thoughts of what words would even be _enough_ to describe the situation.

Tooru gives you a look, the kind that tells you he _sees_ you and you _break._

There’s something tender about knowing the fact that despite you not being saved by anyone other than yourself, there are still those people who will see you through the struggle. Even though more than just a couple of years have passed since you last spoke to eachother, it was like the last you met him was only a yesterday.

The tomorrow you talked about for the longest time is _today,_ and what’s _right now._

His lips on yours, your chest left bare in the haste of lust and love as it molded itself together, the slow roll of his hips quick to meld with yours in the flurry of movements. Because when you connect, you feel it. Tooru keeps his eyes on yours, as he bites his lip, first groaning out his pleasure at the tight fit, before the _something_ that can only be akin to love cracks in his voice, and he’s whimpering your name again.

Like a breathless whisper, or a prayer, he says your name followed by the word _love,_ and just like that, _everything_ is made clear. 

He sees you, you think.

Tooru cups your face, thrusts in again, where you moan at the touch, and he presses a kiss that spills the love he’s had and let grow over the years straight through you. You feel it, you think. _You feel it,_ so you kiss him back, doing the same.

“You’re beautiful,” he tells you, not because he loves you, but just because.

And it’s clear.

Red roses can be red _just because._ Love can be felt _just because._ Oikawa Tooru being the home despite the rollercoaster of your relationship will _always_ be that and there doesn’t need to be a reason to justify that other than _just_ because.

He’s seen, sees, and always _will_ see you _just because._

He doesn’t save you as much as you’ve saved yourself, time and time again, but he holds your hand through it. By way of the marmalade skies and the constellations he’s pointed at and taught you the meaning of.

Dot to dot, story to story, the stars gleam and shine, their light traveling billions of light years away to reach the earth and present itself in the night sky as a little speck of light— _just because._

And he can think that it’s beautiful, _just because._

-

Because the endings is usually where people who have reached their happily ever afters begin to talk about the what-could-have-beens and the lingering what ifs. They linger, not because they demand to be answered, but rather for the sake of just being unanswered.

It wasn’t a tragic fate, per say, but it was just their ending.

“What if we stayed right where we were and didn’t say goodbye?” “What if we said goodbye to each other instead of them at that time?”

You thought about those questions often; a few times over the years after your reunion. Tooru went back to Argentina, at least for a while, while you weren’t back to Boston. This time, it was you who told him see you later, kissing him on the cheek and pinching his sides prolonging the hello you were more than certain would come around much sooner than later this time around.

The questions regarding the whats ifs came and went, but they left much sooner before you could even consider them as lingering thoughts.

“We’re okay,” Tooru would tell you, and for the longest time—even up to now, you admit to yourself as you look at your son asleep in the backseat of the car, you know his reassurance is more than even his forever truth.

This was the kind that surpassed even the concept of eternity.

So “I’m here,” you still tell him often, but this time he knows you mean it like you say your _I love you._ Though he responds with it anyway, “I love you,” he means.

The what ifs remained as what ifs, because that’s all they will ever be. The reality you cradle in your hands is the sight of a family of three, and a home. A sense of belongingness, and the tender kind of love constantly blooming, blooming, _blooming._ Red origami roses folded a little awkwardly by Tooru’s hands set beside your perfect set in your son’s bedside table, where he kept at least ten of them in a little bowl _just because._

And it served as a nice reminder, always, about how you don’t need much of a reason to feel anything. When it came to love, it was an emotion that came, demanding to be felt, where you should leave it just as that. You feel love for the sake of feeling it, and letting yourself even bloom _with_ it, instead of trying to rationalize it to the point of watching a different version of your own story play out in front of you as if you aren’t the main character.

There will always be parts of you that will feel more broken than healed, and it works the same with Tooru. But “thank you,” he says, his hands on the wheel, eyes on the road, forever in the horizon, and the endless, timeless, infinite sky above. “thank you for letting me see you.”

_(for letting me love you.)_

“A part of me is always with you,” you tell him afterwards, motioning to the sleeping child in the back who will always be a half of you and a half of him.

“And I’m thankful for exactly that,” Tooru breathes, in his words love, and truth.

Forever and always.

Because it’s you, who he loves, just because.

Hanggang sa langit.

(to heaven.)


End file.
